As a tech admin I have greater powers than a classroom teacher and, of course, than students. As such, my excitement over writing my first Python script for Minecraft was tempered by the fact that my students might not have the permissions necessary to run all of this fun.

I scooped up my laptop and external hard drive with all of my files and settled in for some testing. Hopes were high. I pull up a student login, got signed in and copied over the Adventures in Minecraft files.

I went to launch Python and noticed it was no longer on our computers. What? Off to the tech office I trotted, donning my best smile and most pleasant voice in hopes of convincing someone to drop everything and install this software for me. Bad form on my part knowing how many people try this everyday and how often I have to gently tell someone that there are others needing more urgent assistance. But, I did it anyway. The upside is that I can download and install the sofware myself, I just needed a password! Lucky me, our tech was willing to pop in and enter the password for me.

Signed in as a student…check!

Adventures in Minecraft files…check!

Python…check!

Let’s do this!

I launched the Bukkit server from the Adventures In Minecraft folder and launched Minecraft…Edu version. As I mentioned before, I knew this might be an issue, but I had to try. Everything launched, but because of the way our version had been packaged students do not have access to the launch Minecraft option, only the Edu version. It’s testing, so I launched Edu and tried to connect to the Bukkit server. No dice!

Okay, our existing configuration wasn’t an option, but I knew we were almost ready to launch the 1.7 update. I scrapped my files and moved to the computer we were testng the 1.7 update on; starting the process all over.
Before I began I knew this would be a longshot, because I was using a Bukkit server for 1.6 with a computer running Minecraft 1.7.Minecraft users know what happened next. It didn’t work! No surprise since it’s already know that your server and client need to be running the same version.

So, what’s a girl to do? Make her own Bukkit server compatible with 1.7, of course!